Psychosocial work conditions as predictors of quality of life at the beginning of older age.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of psychosocial nature of previous work activity on different dimensions of subjective health and life satisfaction at the beginning of older age. MATERIALS AND METHODS The cross-sectional study was performed on a simple random sample of a 65-year-old cohort of community-dwelling citizens of Kraków. All of the 733 participants (412 women, 321 men) were interviewed face to face in their households. Two separate models have been developed to analyze indicators of health-related quality of life: the first model assessed the influence of divergences between psychological job demands and perceived job control and rewards (adjusted to job physical demands), the other explored the impact of divergences between job effort on job control and rewards (adjusted to psychological demands). RESULTS High physical job demands combined with low job control diminished job satisfaction in women. High physical job demands/efforts combined with low control/reward decreased self-rated health scores. Contrary to expectations high psychological job demands combined with low job control diminished the risk of chronic diseases in women. High physical job demands/efforts combined with low job control/rewards increased the functional independence in both genders. CONCLUSIONS Psychosocial conditions of work significantly influenced health-related quality of life at the beginning of older age and their patterns of influence differed between men and women.